Canadian missionary couple detained by China near North Korean border
A Vancouver couple detained in China for the “theft of state secrets” may have triggered an investigation for something as innocuous as posting photos online of a view from their balcony overlooking a river bordering North Korea, according to experts.
Before they were detained Monday night, Kevin Garratt, 54, and Julia Dawn Garratt, 53, uploaded images on Facebook and Instagram of their life in Dandong, including pictures taken from their apartment looking out onto the Yalu River and the Friendship Bridge, which brings trade between China and North Korea.
The Garratts have been living and working across China for the last 30 years, moving to Dandong in 2008 to open up Peter’s Coffee House: a popular hangout for expats and locals looking to improve their English, marketed as “the perfect stopoff while en route to or returning from the Hermit Kingdom.”
“They’ve been there for so long now,” Kevin’s father Ross said Tuesday afternoon from his home in Innisfil, Ont. “Originally they wanted to go there to help people; they were sponsored by different church groups who wanted somebody over there to help run orphanages.”
Their real passion became delivering aid to impoverished North Koreans on either side of the sensitive border through an evangelical Christian organization.
“We’re China-based, North Korea-focused, but we’re Jesus-centered,” Kevin said in a November 2013 guest sermon at Surrey’s Terra Nova Church. In a recording of the sermon — which has since been removed from the church’s website — he described running a house outside Dandong where North Koreans could “hang out.”
Kevin said he used an organization called North Star Aid, which serves the people of North Korea by providing humanitarian aid, according to its website.
A short statement on the China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency after the couple’s detention Monday night made no mention of their aid work but reported they “are under investigation for suspected theft of state secrets about China’s military and national defense research.”
[Read full Vancouver Sun article]
This entry was posted in China, Humanitarian Aid and Relief by Grant Montgomery.
5 references to “Canadian missionary couple detained by China near North Korean border”
Leave a Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
[…] Post navigation ← Previous […]
[…] Hahn’s school in Tumen and Kevin Garratt’s coffee shop were two organizations that were really well known,” said Suh. “Both of them […]
[…] minister back out of a high-profile meeting with Chinese leadership if Beijing does not release a Canadian couple, Kevin and Julia Garratt, seized by Chinese authorities near the border of China and North Korea in […]
[…] A Canadian couple accused of spying near China’s sensitive border with North Korea have been kept separately in near isolation for more than 80 days and denied access to legal counsel, their son said on Friday. […]
[…] The couple has lived in China for the past 30 years and has been running a coffee shop since 2008 in Dandong, a Chinese border city frequented by North Koreans. According to media reports, the couple worked to provide humanitarian aid to the North and trained North Korean Christians insid…. […]